


Storms and Shores

by Falconette



Category: Free!
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 15:45:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4527906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falconette/pseuds/Falconette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haruka has been sinking for the last few years, haunted by guilt, which reflects on his relationship</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storms and Shores

**Author's Note:**

> Setting: sometime after Haruka, Makoto and Nagisa met Rin in the old swimming club, beginning of anime season 1

 

**STORMS AND SHORES**

He didn’t give a reason for showing up beneath my window that night, waiting for me to accompany him on one of his long seaside walks. Maybe he couldn’t explain why he needed my presence when he was distressed or emotional, which happened a lot more often than people around him would have guessed, counting on my discretion and long, silent embraces. Maybe he simply didn’t like explaining himself to anybody. That was just the way Haruka was.

“Come.” he tugged at my hand and I obediently followed down the dark, soft sand molded by bare soles of our feet, cushioning our footsteps, leading us down the beach and into the water. We broke the calm surface without hesitation. The chilly sea caressed my ankles, my calves, my knees when at last Haruka halted and turned to embrace me, pressing his lips against mine. I ignored prickling goose bumps and gave in, leaning against his warm, naked skin, relishing the determination and purposefulness he expressed connected to his element, in his safe place.

It was like kissing a part of the sea, even the skin of his cheeks was salty.

“Have you been crying?” my whisper was covered by his mouth, the silent affirmation burning into my lips like a seal. Words were redundant, the needy tenderness of his hold on my body spoke volumes. His friends didn’t know, his classmates and teammates didn’t know, but I knew.

“Again.” I softly commented, pushing thick bangs from his eyes with my fingertips. They were dry, now. His mouth closed, lips sealed, again.

Leaning back in a motion of complete trust, Haruka let the water take his full weight, floating on the surface without an ounce of resistance or rigidity. A solid matte shape amid countless gleaming Moon-mirrors. Then he suddenly dove in and disappeared, propelling himself away. I sat down in the shallows, waiting for him to return, listening to wet splashing sounds he made in darkness, where water gave way to the night. Even apart, I knew the water connected our naked bodies and I knew he felt that also, and that was enough for now.

He would return when he was ready for words and touches.

After a long time he swam up to me and got stranded in the sand, exhausted, winded. My palm on his chest sensed rapid beating of his heart, his blank expression showing no trace of either exhaustion or peace. He was in love with the water, but entered it only as a thief, skulking in shame like he was passing through the door of a brothel, defeated by his carnal urges and in search of a hurried, furtive activity that would bring short relief.  

He was in love with me, but took me only as a thief, rarely and furtively, defeated by his carnal urges and in search of a short-lived, guilty relief. Afterwards, lying spent in my arms, he would cry and I would wipe the tears away without a word because it was his words they needed, not mine. But his lips remained sealed.

His face turned to me then and I could feel the palpable restlessness behind his gaze, unable to express itself, to find a voice. Today, something was different.  
I pulled myself in closer and planted a kiss on his shoulder, offering my attention, waiting on a reaction. It was there, the hunger behind the cool surface of his gaze, in a hundred little details of his facial expression that changed when I touched him, but he didn’t reach out. Was it strength or weakness that stayed his hand, I always wondered.

My fingers found his, amid sand and water, and interlocked in a submerged clasp, while timid waves danced across our bodies. It was only in the water he let us truly connect, the only medium that strengthened our bond and opened us up to each other. Given time, water always finds a way, makes a path for itself, be it forest, earth or solid rock, so I decided to be like water to him, patient like the waves caressing the shore, consistent like a pelting waterfall, gentle like rain, silent and accepting like the sea.

His fingertips on my cheek startled me from daze the swaying shallows lulled me into. He was tracing the arch of my eyebrows and the shape of my nose down the curve of my lower lip, where he lingered,  his hand trembling from extortion, from lust. My gaze was expectant, inviting, as was my body mere inches away. His fingers rested on my collarbone, tickling the skin with its featherlike caress, before gently cupping my breast, his focused eyes taking everything meticulously in. He swallowed dryly, a vexed expression flashing across his face and rolled to his back. Looking at the starry skies above, he was seeing nothing.

In silence that followed, something inside him was crashing and breaking apart. I could tell by the way his chest rose and fell, pulling out a shipwreck buried deeply inside, reliving a storm so violent it had scarred him for life.

I had to strain my ears when I noticed his lips form words eventually, no louder than the waves around us.

“I did something unforgivable. Years ago. “

Haruka’s voice was empty and dull, ominous, the words like a thing excavated from the ground, inseparable from reek of past and decay. His fingers in my hand were limp and cold. I squeezed tighter, reminding him I was still here and he continued, “I destroyed somebody’s dream. I took the most precious thing from him, just like that.”

He made an uncharacteristic, vague motion through the air with his other hand, indicating the wavy vastness before us, unable to express himself with words. “I thought he sensed the water like me, but…”

Haruka sat up with effort and lost himself in thought for awhile, gazing at the open sea. Something in the way his back stooped and his head hung low made me lean in to him, touch his bare shoulder with mine, bring him back. I never knew what was going on in his head and I could accept that he was not really here when he got contemplative, but the instinct told me to keep him away from whatever thoughts were swarming through his mind right now. He got stung by that swarm too many times already.

“He is back now, I saw him. He is not the same person he was...” Haruka turned to me and added in a lower voice, the closest to scared I ever heard him, “I destroyed him.”

He was right there, before me, the man I loved, hurt and vulnerable, in need of my open arms more than ever before and it took all I had in me to prevent myself from slapping him.

“Do you really think you or anyone can really take away somebody’s dream from him?” I asked in a coarse voice, making him flinch in surprise. He didn’t like surprises. His back straightened, his chin lifted into a defensive pose.

“You haven’t seen him…”

“Can anyone make you change the way you feel about water?” I cut in and pressed on, my voice gaining strength. I didn’t wait for his reply, there was no need. “This is a good thing. Now you can both make amends, move on.”

The look he shot me was a mix of pure incredulity and anger, like a child’s, stubborn and terrified at the same time. Withdrawing from me, he stood up and I followed suit, my hand clutching his wrist without a thought. He instinctively jerked his arm away but I hung on, not allowing him to retreat deeper into the sea.

“This isn’t life!” I yelled out, my voice carrying across the water behind his back. Haruka stood before me, petrified, his eyes wide and confused. “Punishing yourself for something that happened years ago!? Crying when you’re alone!? Not being able to make love…!?”

The voice betrayed me so I pressed a palm across my mouth and trembling chin, letting go of his arm and stepping back onto the sand. The tears that came carried all the bitterness I felt in my heart, disappearing in the ground without a sound. Haruka’s shoulders relaxed, but he kept his distance, observing me in bewilderment.

“You are scared.” A realization finally hit me, as I was smearing the tears from off my face with my palms, “You are scared that now he is back you will have to resolve things between you two. And that you will finally have to get out of the bathtub you live in.”

Haruka’s eyes obtained a dark glare and he frowned, looking away. I had hit the mark and had hit it without remorse.

“I don’t live in a bathtub.” Words slowly dripped like melted lead from his lips, but it was not about what he was saying, it was how he was saying it. Did he project his hatred of himself onto me now? Were we breaking up?

I didn’t want that.

But I knew we couldn’t go on the way we used to, the numb, barren way we knew. I stood in the wet sand, unable to move on or go back.

“H-haru…” I whispered, afraid to touch him, scared to penetrate the cloud of darkness around him. He wasn’t looking at me, wasn’t looking at the sea. He was inside his head again, on desolate, colorless, jagged shores of his trauma, the place that used to be the most sensitive part of him. Before.

Time passed. Too much time. He was standing naked before me, knee deep in water, but I knew that the most important things about him were still hidden from my gaze. I didn’t think I had the strength to stop him if he decided to dive in again. I didn’t know what was I waiting to happen. Damp seawater coat cooled my skin, making it shiver, but I dared not move. Haruka’s eyes finally focused on me again and I felt even more bare than before, as his unreadable, silent gaze climbed slowly across my thighs, my belly and chest, to my face, lingering there.

Was he saying goodbye?

Our eyes met and for a moment the whole world faded into background at the sight of his intensive stare.

“No, no one can change the way I feel about water.” his calm but strong voice came from a distance, bringing me to here and now. Away from my fears and to him. He blinked and his eyes softened, “You are right.”

“I am?” I meekly smiled, my knees suddenly week.

Haruka’s smile was even paler as he turned his head towards the sea. I didn’t need to know the details, I didn’t need to know the story, but I noticed the way his breathing seemed deeper and unburdened, the relaxed posture of his shoulders, and that was enough for me. No matter the length of the road ahead of him, he took a step in the right direction.

The change in him felt like collapsing of a wall between us and even though everything about him was reaching out for me - his open gaze, his chin, his chest - he stood helplessly rooted to the ground. The two-step gap between us, the area where the ground gave way to the sea but where the sea also gave way to the ground, was becoming more and more obvious, ridiculous, a construct bridging of which required a change in the usual way of doing things.

“And maybe I am, a little…” Haruka mumbled, looking at his feet and stepping out of water, pulling me into his arms. I shared a long kiss with a new person, then, unburdened and free.


End file.
